Thyme who?

Haha. No one would accuse me of working Thyme too hard.

She got her fourth formal training session yesterday. The weather was beautiful, so I worked with her outside. As always, there were challenging circumstances. One thing I have realized is that I have to grab whatever opportunities I have. We will never make progress if I'm always waiting for the perfect moment. In this case, Tyche was with her. It requires a bit of forethought to separate Tyche smoothly at this point and I just didn't have time yesterday. Last time I tried to separate them quickly, Thyme broke the door trying to follow Tyche. Thyme didn't see me closing the door and I didn't see her coming. Result -- a broken slider. Oy. (At least I didn't hurt Thyme, though I did scare the bejeezus out of her.)  Yesterday, Tyche stayed with her mama.

In the end, I think it may not be such a bad thing to have Tyche in the session with Thyme as long as she's not completely in the way. Tyche tends to be an attention hog. She is much more eager and willing than Thyme. That means she will do things that Thyme is not ready to do, but that Thyme can watch. This can not be bad.

For the training, I was on one side of a corral panel. Thyme and Tyche were on the other side. We practiced touching the target. This is the tip end of the green mop handle that I introduced last time. Thyme had no problem doing this and made only a few attempts at the very beginning to touch the handle somewhere else along the pole. The challenge for me was holding the target in a position that Thyme could reach, but Tyche could not. This meant alot of reaching above Thyme's head, which she is not crazy about, but will do. Better than last time certainly. Periodically, I gave Tyche a turn. They both crowded the fence.

After 5 or 10 minutes of this, I upped the ante a bit. (Did I mention, I can be impatient.) Instead of rewarding Thyme for touching the tip of the target with her nose, I wanted to reward her for letting me touch her nose with the tip of the target.  On my first attempt, I lightly tapped the tip of the handle on her blaze, halfway between her nose and eyes. She rocketed straight up in the air.  Such a subtle, but important difference. The speed and location of the target relative to her were virtually identical to what came before. Nonetheless, when the contact was caused by me instead of by her, she lost her cool. Amazing.

She was both startled (clearly) and a bit confused about this turn of events. She held back and approached the fence much more reluctantly after this. Each time when she got close enough I tapped her with the target. Always around her nose area.  I couldn't even come close to reaching past her nose area without her moving away. No poll, no neck, no shoulder, not even her cheek. I intermingled trials of her being touched with trials allowing her to touch the target herself. I also, I should say, reduced the schedule of grain reinforcement around this time. Which is to say, I am no longer giving her a bite of grain at every single click.

I can not say that Thyme acclimated to being touched with the target. But something equally interesting did happen. While Thyme was hanging back, fearful of being touched, Tyche was center stage begging for attention. So I tried giving Tyche a couple of taps with the target. Now, I should say, Tyche doesn't have any extraordinary problems being touched. She loves having her nose and face and ears scratched. But, she is still an untrained baby for the most part and doesn't, for instance, like having her legs touched or her feet picked up. When I reached out and touched her shoulder with the target, she didn't jump, she just tried to grab the pole with her mouth; even more so when I tried to touch her legs with the pole. It only took a few trials to get her to stop though. She very quickly figured out that there was no click and no grain when she mouthed the pole. After, I would say, only 3 or 4 trials during which I withheld the reward while she mouthed the pole, she figured out that she needed to stand still while I touched her back, her legs, her shoulder, etc.. She was quite receptive to this idea. Meanwhile, Thyme was thoughtfully, if somewhat apprehensively, watching the whole interaction.

I wrapped up the session with a few more trials for Thyme, allowing her to come touch the target for a reward of grain. I did this only so she could end on a positive note.

A few miscellaneous notes.

1. Since our last session (Training day n), I have definitely felt that Thyme is less apprehensive of me in general. She seems less likely to startle when I approach her stall undetected -- for filling her water bucket for instance. In the past, I have sometimes caused a one-horse stampede when feeding and watering her. She is also more eager to come up to me at the gate if she does notice me first. And as always, if she sees me when my back is turned, she will come right up and stick her nose in my back. For obvious reasons, I try not to put myself in that situation. I do not want to end up in the path of the one-horse stampede.

2.  I got another slight indication of Thyme's sensitivity to my attentional orientation (whether I am looking at her or not) while working yesterday. It was beyond the scope of what I wanted to accomplish in the session, so I didn't pursue it. At first I had trouble offering the target to Thyme in a way that Tyche couldn't beat her to. I held the target in my right hand with the clicker in the palm of the same hand. This way I could hold the cup of grain in the left hand while keeping it clear and out of the way. With this arrangement I could easily stretch the target up and far to my right, while facing Thyme. She in turn had no trouble following this action and doing what she needed to do (touching the target). But to stretch the target out to my left while holding it up over Tyche's head, required me to reach my right hand far across my body. This in turn caused my body to swivel to the left, in effect turning my back on Thyme. In these cases, Thyme refused to approach. I wondered at the time if this was related to her understanding of my attentional focus. This configuration, 'back turned, but target offered' is very conflicting information if you are trying to understand the actor's intent. It would not be surprising if a deeply timid animal responded to such conflict with hesitation. "I'd rather just be safe and stay back, lady. You can keep the grain." Hmmm.

3.  Also, since I posted last, I have had a few informal clicker sessions with Boomerang. Which is to say, I took him for a walk with the clicker. I used it to reward moments of not pulling on the leash. I have to admit that my motivation and focus are less strong with Boomer, so I can only give broad impressions. Maybe he got the message. Maybe he pulled a bit less on the leash by the end. I'm not sure. I also got him to practice sitting and lying down some and those he's definitely improved on. His improvement can be felt in the house in daily interactions as well.

Day n - Training to a target

Well, I'm clearly not going to manage training every day with Thyme. In this case, do I count days trained, or days since training began? This conundrum is more than I can bear. Therefore, no more counting.

Phwew. Glad to get that resolved.

Today was a training day. I grabbed a few minutes at lunchtime to spend with the little brown pony. The weather was beautiful and the ground not too too soft, so I put the other ponies out. Even little Tyche went out and hung with Tigerlilly for ten minutes, while her mom worked. It was good.

Thyme has done so well with both the clicker sessions and her willingness to approach me since we started. She even let me kiss her nose yesterday, which is huge, but does not, I should point out, involve me reaching out to touch her with my hand. In any case, I decided to move on to target training,

I selected this object to train her with. It's the broken handle of a swiffer mop. It's perfect as a target and it does my heart good to find a new use for a busted mop. Thyme took exactly 3 trials to figure out that she had to touch the target instead of the orange cup. Her reactions were beautiful. Ab.so.lute.ly beautiful. She was so curious and so attentive and so eager to figure out what the game was. She was also very much her timid little self. She'd stand way back and stretch her nose out as far as she could possibly reach to touch the target without committing her whole body. She was far more comfortable when I held the target level with her mouth than if I held it above her head or down by her knees. She tried to take the whole thing in her mouth a couple of times, which I did not reward her for, instead waiting for her to nuzzle the very tip of the target with the tip of her nose. Two or three points she became overwhelmed and walked away. She'd turn away as though to regain control of herself, yawn a couple of times, and then come back and try again. People have a lot of theories about why animals yawn in contexts like these. My feeling is that the animal is expressing something like frustration, along the lines of, "I know I should, but I don't really want to."

All in all, Thyme had a marvelous third session and I am super optimistic about her potential.

Day 3 - Community Clicking

Day 2 passed without any clicking at all, but Thyme did take some apple slices from my hand, which is more than Annie will do. I believe (imagine?) I can already see a more trusting tone in Thyme's manner towards me. Strangely quick response, if true.

This morning, Day 3, I set out to do more clicker/grain-in-cup training. Because of the weather, we had a large audience of ponies and goats -- everybody was inside. I've decided that I can't wait for the ideal conditions, in this case isolation, to get on with Thyme's training. The other ponies will have to watch and I'll just have to take my chances with that. Worst case scenario, it will make it hard for any of the other ponies to ever learn the actual use of the clicker, since they won't get the true first hand, contingent experience of the unconditioned stimulus, the grain, paired with the clicker. Sometimes they'll just hear the clicker paired with nothing. Best case scenario, they learn the same things Thyme learns, only through observation, rather than first hand experience. I may try to mitigate some of the risk by giving any pony who observes Thyme training at least a few trials of whatever training Thyme is getting.

In any case, today Thyme was unconcerned with the clicker itself and dove right into the matter of extracting tiny pieces of grain from the small cup with her big mouth. Tyche got equal time with the grain and clicker. I was pleased that both Thyme and Tyche used only their upper lip to retrieve the bits of grain. Neither tried to use their tongue or teeth. Josie and Shadow both got a few goes. I may have given all the minis (BomBom, Tigerlilly, Jesse, and Chief) a couple trials each as well, though I don't remember now, 12 hours later.

And finally, Annie got a few turns. Annie, who, if anything, was far more reluctant than Thyme. We speculate that in the entire 17 years before she came to us, Annie had never been given treats, never mind  by hand. In fact, one of the first times the 11-year-old tried to give Annie an apple, the 11-year-old's entire hand ended up in Annie's mouth. I don't know which one of them was more surprised. Nobody was hurt, but both parties were shaken up.

No such untoward events occurred today with either Annie or Thyme.

Day 1 - Thyme's Debut

Spooky and skittish doesn't even begin to describe this girl. To start with, Thyme was scared of -- wait for it -- the clicker. That's right -- scared of the clicker itself. 

But let me begin at the start. 

I had envisioned a relaxed afternoon with Thyme inside alone in her stall. I was caught flat-footed when the 11-year-old's afternoon plans got cancelled. Instead, I smuggled the clicker out to the barn at dinner time when I went out to feed. It was not the best scenario, since all the ponies were now in and Thyme was eating anyway, so less interested in treats. And unlike with the dogs, I wasn't keen to delay the ponies' evening meal just so Thyme could get her training. A little hunger may make dogs cooperative and willing, but it just makes horses rude. 

I ended up feeding everybody first. I then put a little extra grain in a small cup that I could offer to Thyme with one hand, while I held the clicker in the other. Taking the grain directly out of my hand was too overwhelming for her. I got in maybe 10-12 pairings of the grain and clicker. She was happy to take the extra grain, but also very curious and concerned about the clicker itself.  

I wanted to get a picture to document the event, but because it was dinnertime and winter, it was already pretty dark in the barn. I had to use the flash on my iphone to get any image at all. The flash is pretty delayed relative to the button press, which means the subject has to hold still for a good chunk of time in order to get the shot.  Which is exactly what this skittish pony was not willing to do. Her style was more 'drive-by and snatch'. 

The first couple of photos show only a ghostly image of a horse retreating into the darkness behind the gate. That's Tyche's little nose in the bottom left corner beside her mom.

I got a little better at estimating the delay with this second photo, but Thyme's get away was still too quick for me to capture her taking grain from the orange cup. 

The ponies across the aisle were fascinated, so I offered them each some grain from the cup as well. Notice that neither one had a problem holding still long enough to get a shot with the flash. This is Shadow. 

And this is Josie (with Shadow peeking around the post.) Both Shadow and Josie are friendly and fairly well-mannered.

On a final attempt I did manage to get a shot of Thyme with her nose in the cup. I don't think she actually slowed down any though. I just got better at timing the picture. 

So ended Thyme's clicker debut.

Kids and clickers

Oy. The 11-year-old found the clicker yesterday. Boomer got a heady dose of random clicking before I walked in and took the clicker away. And hid it.

Since today was Saturday, the 11-year-old was home all day, so no training. That means the dogs have been spared since Thursday, though I did manage a quick test with Boomer for 'sit' vs. 'down'. He got them both with no problems and no confusions. Good boy!

The 11-year-old will be out most of the afternoon tomorrow, so I'll pick up then. Barring a drastic drop in the temperature, I'm planning to spend a few minutes out in the barn with Thyme as well. I'll start with the clicker-treat association.

Hmmm. Wonder if clicker training would work with the 11-year-old...